The present invention relates to beverage dispensers for cooling a beverage to an acceptable temperature for consumption. In this regard, there are various distinct types of chilled beverage dispensers in the industry. Each, however, requires some sort of cooling system, typically a source of a cooling medium, such as a compressor and pump, a heat exchanger, and connecting tubing between the heat exchanger and cooling medium source. The heat exchanger itself is generally in contact with the beverage or the bowl containing the beverage. For example, one common type of dispenser incorporates a heat exchanger consisting of one or more continuous sinuous tubes submerged within the beverage in the dispenser bowl. The tubes form a heat exchanger bank that carries the cooling medium. The beverage is caused to circulate about the bank, allowing its heat to be transferred across the walls of the tubing to the flowing cooling medium. However, in such a dispenser, there must be a hole or opening through the bottom wall of the dispenser bowl to allow the tubes submerged in the beverage to be in fluid communication with the compressor and pump. Furthermore, such a construction creates a sanitation problem as the internal surfaces of the bowls and the heat exchanger bank must be cleaned with regularity, and the very shape of the heat exchanger bank poses a significant challenge to cleaning.
Therefore, alternative dispenser constructions have attempted to avoid the sanitation problem by creating a “holeless” dispenser bowl, in which the heat exchanger abuts an external surface of the bowl, commonly, the bottom wall of the bowl. Accordingly, the bottom wall of the bowl acts as an intermediary heat conductor and transfers the heat from the beverage to the flowing cooling medium of the heat exchanger. However, this is often an ineffective or inefficient cooling technique.
Thus, there remains a need for chilled beverage dispenser that avoid sanitation problems of the prior art, but without sacrificing the effectiveness and efficiency of the cooling of the beverage.